The five stories in SECOND TIME AROUND dramatize in alternately comic and serious terms the quest of one Jewish American character, Ludwig Fried, to enlarge his life-Wto make up for losses, to expand his horizons (introspectively as well as geographically), to become a better writer-without betraying or diminishing the present realities of his life. He looks for light in the shadows of history-his own, the modern world's. A connoisseur of ambivalence, he longs for certainty; a ruminative loner, he would like to be a conversational partner.